Peace, pain, Sukkot
By P. David Hornik
web posted October 20, 2003
In the weeklong Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) holiday, the
sense of peace enters your system from outside, from the sheer
detachment and composure of nature, and not for any "reason" in
the normal sense. Having grown up in the northeastern U.S., I've
never gotten used to these autumns that are more like a gentle
aftermath of summer, my north-Jerusalem street light-filled and
serene. And it's good to be able to feel this pure, constitutional
peace, since there's precious little warrant for it in the more
concrete realities—maybe even less than usual.
Another prisoner exchange is afoot, to the tune, apparently, of
400 imprisoned Arab terrorists and criminals for one kidnapped
Israeli civilian and the bodies of three kidnapped Israeli soldiers.
Only about a week ago I angered someone, was accused of a
lack of compassion, by arguing that such an exchange is
outrageous and indefensible, exposes us as weak and desperate,
and invites further kidnapping and murder. But now I'm not so
sure. Since then, news reports say that the Israeli civilian, Ehud
Tannenbaum, has been savagely tortured by his Hezbollah
captors, all his teeth having been ripped out. Imagine that, having
all your teeth pulled without novocaine in torture sessions. Now I
find myself unable to oppose the government in pursuing the
lopsided deal. Isn't there a strong chance that some of the
released terrorists will return to their ways and kill Israelis? Can't
argue with that; but can we leave an actual human being in the
hands of such monsters if there's a way of extricating him? Can't
argue with that either.
Another reason for opposing the imminent deal is that it
apparently will not include Ron Arad, the Israeli air force
navigator taken prisoner in Lebanon back in 1986. Arad has
never been confirmed dead and, according to persistent reports,
is still being held in a prison in Iran. Even more depressing is that
the terrorist leader whom Israel was supposedly holding hostage
as collateral for Arad, Mustafa Dirani, will instead be included in
the deal (along with the hundreds of others) for Tannenbaum and
the three corpses, while Arad will be left out in the cold. Again,
what do you do—hold out for Arad and condemn Tannenbaum
to God knows what fate? But if all this wasn't enough, last
weekend the daily Yediot Aharonot published an extensive
report on Arad's fate over the past sixteen years, based, the
paper says, on the testimony of three Iranian exiles. Among other
things, the report says Arad is now a paraplegic, having
undergone an operation to paralyze his legs after being shot in an
escape attempt while he was still being held in Lebanon.
This is the enemy we face, capable of a cruelty that for us,
conditioned by thousands of years of Jewish morality and
adherence to modern democratic principles, is incomprehensible.
And with the spotlight on prisoners for a moment, Azzam
Azzam, too, has returned to the news, the Druze Israeli who was
judicially kidnapped in Egypt seven years ago. Compared to
Tannenbaum and Arad, Azzam's fate is heavenly—he can be
visited by relatives and Israeli officials, he's not undergoing
mutilation and torture. But his fate, too, is horrible enough in
itself—confined for seven years to a three-square-meter cell,
sleeping on a mattress, using a plastic pail as a toilet. And while
Arad was flying a military mission over Lebanon when he had to
bail out and was captured, and Tannenbaum may have been
seized in an Arab country where he was involved in shady
business or drug deals, Azzam's only real "crime" was to be an
Israeli citizen spending time in a country with which Israel is
ostensibly, contractually at peace.
Peace . . . the most abused word in the language? Yet I feel it
these days, despite all the pain and horror in the news. It is only
an effect of nature—gentle sunlight, the lazy warmth that keeps
lingering into the autumn months? In the courtyard below me, my
neighbor's sukkah stands silent in the morning, its green walls
gleaming. If I look further, I can see others here and there along
the street. "Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven
days . . . " Maybe not just nature, but also the fact of endurance
and survival: and the thought that we have indeed succeeded in
spreading light, the principle of human sanctity, to much of the
world, even if other parts remain in darkness.
P. David Hornik's work has appeared in
FrontPageMagazine.com, AmericanDaily.com, MichNews.com,
the Jerusalem Post, IsraelInsider.com, the Jewish Press, and
IsraelNationalNews.com.
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